Import apple sales continue to grow in U.S. supermarkets. The latest data from Nielsen Perishables Group through June 1 shows strong increases in sales and volume for key import apple brands.

“International production from our Southern Hemisphere club variety partners continues to grow and we’re seeing it payoff in terms of greater supermarket sales during the summer months,” Robb Myers, director of sales and imports at CMI, said in a press release.

After a two-year success, GloriAnn Farms and its partner, Five Crowns Marketing, are once again featuring their "Support Our Troops" campaign. For every retail case of corn sold to participating retailers in August, GloriAnn Farms will make a donation to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which contributes to the families of military personnel lost or injured in duty.

Dale Firman, managing partner of Coosemans LA Shipping, a fixture on the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market since 1982, doesn’t have an exact formula for successfully retaining employees, but he and his partner, Alan Pollack, have certainly created a work environment where employees grow and thrive.

“Word gets out where the opportunities exist,” he commented. “Because of our reputation as innovators and as fair and creative business people, a lot of highly qualified individuals approach us for jobs.”

“There are a lot of exciting things happening right now” at Progressive Produce Corp. in Los Angeles, Vice President Jack Gyben told The Produce News. Among them is “the fact that we bought the asparagus business from Mission Produce and dramatically expanded our asparagus business.”

The company has also more than doubled its organic business over the past year and has, for the fourth year in a row, doubled its sales of “Hollywood Fries” potatoes, according to Gyben.

Some drivers for three of the largest drayage companies serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach began “an indefinite strike” on Monday, July 7, as dock worker officials took a three-day hiatus in their negotiations with West Coast port officials on a new labor contract.

The effect of the trucker strike on the movement of cargo around the port complex of the adjacent Long Beach and Los Angeles ports was initially minimal, but the threat grew larger Wednesday morning after the drivers set up picket lines outside two of the main port terminals.

Unified Grocers Inc. announced that Vic Versino has joined the company as vice president of logistics. He joins the company from DVD rental kiosk company Redbox, where he was vice president of logistics and inventory, responsible for streamlining and automating distribution operations. Previously, Versino held logistics leadership positions with Supervalu, Kellogg and Martin Brower/McDonald's.